Richard D. Fairbank
Founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Capital One
Richard Fairbank is founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Capital One Financial Corporation.
Capital One, headquartered in McLean, Virginia, is a diversified Fortune 200 company with 50 million customer accounts worldwide and one of the most recognized brands in America. Through its international lending businesses and banking franchise in Louisiana and Texas, Capital One offers a wide range of financial products, including credit cards, auto loans, small business loans, home equity loans, installment loans, commercial loans, deposits and savings products.
Mr. Fairbank began his career in 1981 as a consultant with Strategic Planning Associates (which later became Mercer Management) spending a total of seven years in consulting and specializing in the banking industry.
While at SPA, Mr. Fairbank shaped the idea that would ultimately become Capital One's hallmark - its Information Based Strategy (IBS) - which integrates the traditionally separate functions of marketing, credit, risk operations and information technology into one flexible decision-making structure that enables the company to offer financial services tailored to fit each customer's individual needs.
Mr. Fairbank planned to pitch banks on the concept of using IBS to build a card portfolio and decided to recruit fellow SPA consultant, Nigel Morris, to help launch the IBS concept and find a sponsor.
In 1988, Richmond, Virginia-based Signet Bank agreed to implement the mass-customization strategy. In 1994, as the credit card division's revenues and profits began to overtake the rest of the bank, Signet decided to spin-off its credit card business as Capital One Financial Corporation and Mr. Fairbank became Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Capital One.
Under Mr. Fairbank's leadership and through his vision, Capital One became one of the largest credit card issuers in the United States. However, Mr. Fairbank's vision was to take IBS beyond credit cards to become a world-class, diversified financial services company.
As a result, Capital One has successfully expanded into new products and new markets. Capital One is now one of the leading credit card issuers in the UK and has created the second largest non-captive auto lender in the United States.
Throughout his career Mr. Fairbank has received many honors and awards including being named "Business Leader of the Year" by Washingtonian Magazine, "Best CEO" in specialty finance by Institutional Investor magazine [and, most recently, "Industrialist of the Year" by Virginia Governor Mark Warner and the Science Museum of Virginia.] Mr. Fairbank has also been named to Worth magazine's list of the top 10 CEOs and "50 Best CEOs" and Future Banker's list of "influential personalities in financial services" and is a recipient of the Gartner Group's award for "Excellence in Technology."
Mr. Fairbank served as a Director of MasterCard International's Global Board of Directors from February 2004 until May of 2006. Prior to that, Mr. Fairbank served as the Chairman of the U.S. Region Board of MasterCard from March of 2002 until February of 2004 and as a member of the U.S. Region Board of Directors of MasterCard from March of 1995 until March of 2002.
Mr. Fairbank graduated from Stanford University with a degree in economics and received an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.